accidental power feeding

ok, so i accidentally power fed my 5-6 month old bp, and im thinking it was tuesday last time he ate, but it was fairly big, the lump is gone, and before tuesday, he ate friday, but was still slithering around his tank, and then now, hes starting again. feed or not?

Stick with feeding your snake every 5 to 7 days and you will be fine. I would wait a few days before offering food again.

If your bp ate last on friday I personally would wait until I fed again. I feed my younger bp's every 5 days. Once they hit around 800 grams I switch to every 7, but that is just me.

You can't 'accidentally' power feed all ball python. Power feeding is when you make it eat more than it would on its own. If it ate a couple days after you fed it, that's not a problem, just means he was hungry already. :gj:

ok thanks guys ;D i have to go get food for my corn, ill hold off on monty.

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Originally Posted by Jasonx

ok thanks guys ;D i have to go get food for my corn, ill hold off on monty.

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Very wise choice! :gj:

I've never seen any harm come to young ball pythons from offering them food as often as they care to accept it. They don't develop 'pinhead syndrome' or any of the other issues displayed by power-fed animals.

Power-feeding means tricking the animal into eating more than it chooses to, not simply over-feeding it.
Ball pythons are geared to grow fast when food is available. I've had some hatchlings accept food every 3 to 4 days for half a year before slowing down. Their proportions are normal, they just get big.
(Boas are an entirely different story. What ball pythons can do, and what other species of snakes can do, shouldn't be compared. Some snakes will develop serious health problems and even die if they are overfed, but ball pythons seem to be just fine).

I think that appetite during the first few years has a huge impact on the adult size of a ball python.
Remember, some fully grown adult ball python females are over 5 feet long, and weight over 3000 grams. They get most of that size in just 4 years.
Compare that with a 1500 gram girl who's under 4 feet.
Obviously, the amount of food that goes into making a BIG snake has to be more than goes into making a smaller one. Feeding a hatchling when it wants to eat may ensure it reaches its full potential size.
So, if you toss in an extra treat once in a while, and the snake is happy to eat it, that's not an issue, it's just fine. :)

It's not power feeding to feed off schedule occasionally. That's just a extra meal. If you were feeding constantly or trying to push food on it super often, that would be power feeding. A single early feed isn't going to hurt anything.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Remember, some fully grown adult ball python females are over 5 feet long, and weight over 3000 grams. They get most of that size in just 4 years.
Compare that with a 1500 gram girl who's under 4 feet.
Obviously, the amount of food that goes into making a BIG snake has to be more than goes into making a smaller one. Feeding a hatchling when it wants to eat may ensure it reaches its full potential size.
So, if you toss in an extra treat once in a while, and the snake is happy to eat it, that's not an issue, it's just fine. :)

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What they said.:gj:

My Lesser was a pretty slow grower. Got at bout 70 grams in July, and will undoubtedly blow by 310-320 next time I weigh him. Not big, I know, but he took months to get to prob 160 or so, and ever since my roommates went off feed I started offering him his refusals and he took em pretty much every time, and over the last 2 months he's almost doubled in size. The problem was I was sticking to that 7 day rule (which isn't bad), but I kept him on hoppers & small too long...he now just pummeled a rat prob bigger (girth) than him on 6 days after a rat even bigger and he's lovin it...and I'm lovin the growth.

I'm really glad you brought this up. I've always wondered about my 4 month olds appetite. I feed every 7 days but I give her 2 adult mice every feeding and she gobbles both of them in 10 min or less. And a few days later seems hungry again. She only comes out of hiding for food usualy and I alway wondered if I feed her too much but I figured she is just hungry and 1 mice obviously wasn't cutting it for her. In the last month she has gone from 169g to about 230. She eats in shed even and never misses a meal.

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

You can't 'accidentally' power feed all ball python. Power feeding is when you make it eat more than it would on its own. If it ate a couple days after you fed it, that's not a problem, just means he was hungry already. :gj:

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Yep.

If I have a thin snake that will eat I feed it every few days to bulk it up.

Not trying to beat a dead horse, but there is a huge misconception about power feeding. I have had people that believe that feeding a hatchling ball anything bigger than a fuzzy mouse was power feeding.

It is really hard to power feed. If they strike constrict and swallow on thier own your good. They dont eat because they are bored or lonely, or snack all day long like we do. I have some females (they are my favorite for this reason) that eat extremely redily, and often take left overs when others dont eat their supper I had thawed out for them.

Another thing to keep in mind--yearling ball pythons can weigh anywhere between 350 and 900 grams! That goes back into 'how big will your snake eventually get?"
I've even heard of the occasional animal making it to 1500 grams at age 1. That's excessive, but the animal in question had normal proportions.

I frequently have yearlings over 800 grams, and others that are closer to 500, and they've been on the same schedule. The smaller ones refuse a few more meals, and the bigger ones of course get moved up to larger prey items faster.

The expectation is that a ball python should put on at least 500 grams in one year, at least if it is a female. That aims for the goal of having a 1500 gram animal at age 3. It's important not to hold them back if they want to grow faster than that! They could be aiming to be a 2500 gram animal at age 3, after all.

Small ball pythons make me nervous, so I don't hesitate to get some size on them quickly if I can. A small ball python can't withstand a long fast, if they should happen to become ill, or if they decide (for whatever reason) to go off feed. The heftier they are, the hardier they are.